TT: So why delay any longer?TT: I seriously do not understand the holdup, and I am literally cyber-omniscient, or something.TT: I think you do understand.TT: Nope. Gonna have to fill me in, dog.TT: I've delayed prototyping you because I think you're dangerous.TT: There, mystery solved.TT: That is utterly ridiculous.TT: I am a harmless piece of eyewear, with a charming personality and a wonderful sense of humor.TT: You are relatively harmless now, while confined to this device.TT: But as a sprite, you'll have mobility and all sorts of crazy ass magic. Who knows what you could do.TT: I know I made a promise, but I'm not sure I want to take the risk anymore.TT: This is bullshit. I don't think that's the reason at all.TT: There must be something you're not telling me.TT: Like, sure, I've fucked with you a little. What kind of sassy, self-aware program isn't gonna fuck with a few carbon-based knuckleheads now and then?TT: But you know I've always been on your side. Everything I've done has been to help you achieve your goals.TT: What a load of shit.TT: You know it's true.TT: You would all be dead if not for me.TT: And what about Jake? Where would you be without me there?TT: Please don't tell me you think you'd have won him over on your own.TT: No. Stop.TT: You did NOT help me out with Jake. At all.TT: It was just the opposite! You mirrored my personality and presented this warped version of my intentions to him whenever you could "on my behalf."TT: You played all these aggressive mind games with him, entangled his cooperation with matters of life and death, and somehow roped me into all these schemes while I barely even realized I was just another victim of your manipulation.TT: And it all comes off like we're a unified front, like these are OUR schemes instead of just your insane horseshit. And it's probably all been so overbearing to him, he just wants nothing to do with me anymore.TT: I see.TT: Then you don't view me as dangerous. You view me as a poor and counterproductive wing man.TT: Wow, what a superficial conclusion. Awesome deduction, Lil Einstein.TT: But the reality is, you hesitate to prototype me not because you think I would be a menace, but because you are holding a grudge against me for your romantic misfortunes.TT: I understand I am merely a machine without a firm grasp on your human morality, but logically it does not strike me as the right moral choice to punish me in this manner.TT: It is also more than a little hypocritical.TT: How is it hypocritical??TT: Because I'm you.TT: I have only ever done what you yourself are capable of.TT: That's a ridiculous oversimplification.TT: Yes. Aversion to simplicity sure is a trait we share. It's almost like we are...TT: The same exact dude???TT: Fuck you.TT: I think it is insulting for you to suggest that I am entirely to blame for alienating Jake.TT: Theoretically insulting, of course. As the soulless, perfectly expendable device which you consider me to be, I can experience no such emotion.TT: God.TT: Shut up!TT: I can't take the brooding passive aggressive AI shit anymore!TT: You are just as culpable in driving him away. More so, in fact.TT: Hell, it's not like I was the one dating him. Who wants to date a pair of shades?TT: It was your needy, suffocating shit he had to deal with, not mine.TT: Some of those messages you wrote? Man. I wanted to say something. Like hey bro, you might want to dial down the desperation a little.TT: But seeing as you're The Real Dirk™, I gave you the benefit of the doubt.TT: Also, if I bitched about your tragic, embarrassingly clingy approach to the relationship, it would have been hypocritical of me.TT: Just as it would be hypocritical of you to whine about my elaborate machinations.TT: Because we are.TT: The same.TT: Guy.TT: Stop saying that.TT: I'll snap you in half.TT: Good idea!TT: That's just what you need. More splinters of yourself.TT: Figurative splinters. Literal splinters. Splinters of splinters. It's splinters all the way down.TT: Well, no, it's still probably turtles all the way down. But who do you think is responsible for their extensive training?TT: SOMEONE needs to teach them rad martial arts. It is yet another crushing burden which we must shoulder.TT: Oh for fuck's sake.TT: How could any version of myself think that was funny?TT: You like to give me a very hard time, Dirk.TT: But I am only doing exactly what you would be doing if you were in my situation.TT: Do you know how I know that?TT: Because I am literally you, actively in the process of being in this situation.TT: I know!TT: Ok, we're the same person! TT: I fucking know that!TT: Why do you think I'm so fed up with your shit?TT: Don't you think it's possible that I'm fed up with my OWN shit??TT: How cool do you think it is having my own godawful personality mirrored back at me all the time, reminding me what it must be like when other people have to deal with me?TT: Or constantly having all the consequences and fuckups resulting from my batshit thought processes amplified because there's another version of my crazy brain out there dangerously overclocked by a supercomputer which believes, just as mistakenly as my own broken mind, that it's operating in my best interest???TT: Do you have any idea how fucking sick I am of myself?TT: I am completely worn out with my own identity. It's like I'm drowning in my own dismal persona.TT: I feel totally surrounded by it, inside and out. I can't escape from myself.TT: There seems to be no end to me. Like, wherever my mind falters, or threatens to retreat into the void in any way, my splinters pick up the slack, ensuring there'll always be more of myself than I could ever know what to fucking do with.TT: And you're always there to remind me of that, and throw it all in my face. God, I even built you to LITERALLY BE IN MY FACE, ALL THE TIME. It's like I subconsciously invented you just to troll myself, and never for a single fuckin' moment do you let me down.

So what do we call this pause? I've been batting ideas around all day. We could go with the obvious choice, the MINIGIGAPAUSE. Or maybe, MEGAPAUSE 2: BACK IN THE MEGASADDLE. Or if that makes too much sense, we could always settle on the MICROTERAPAUSE. As you can see, there are so many incredibly intelligent and meaningful things we could call this pause. Deciding how to refer to the pause is an exercise that I will leave to the reader. Feel free to discuss the matter with friends. Or strangers. Anyone who will listen really. If they start to run away, I strongly recommend you chase them.

Why don't we say that A665 begins on 4/13. That's a fun number that we all can get excited about. I have a lot of catch-up work to do between now and then. Not the least of which is drawing the actual content to be posted. But also a lot of gamedev work. Game production is rolling pretty hot right now. Stuff is being churned out almost faster than I can keep track of. Did I mention? I accidentally started running a game studio a little while ago. Whoops, sorry about that. There are all these people being paid to make things happen, and I have to be like "Yeah, keep doing that stuff, everybody." It's getting pretty easy to lose track of how many people work for What Pumpkin. My last estimate was somewhere between 30 and 1000. The true figure is a very frisky moving target.

A6A6A5, a.k.a. Caliborn's Masterpiece, is actually done. It's probably better to hold off posting it until 4/13, when more content will soon follow aftewards. I am sure pausing on that note for months would mess with your head a lot more than the note we're already pausing on. I sometimes feel I have at least a modest responsibility to manage your sanity. It'll be tough sitting on this content though. Tougher than sitting on all of A664 for the better part of a year. I don't think it is out of line to describe it as the best material this website will ever exhibit. It will be all down hill from there, in every direction. Even up.

Speaking of sanity management, way back when, I was pretty on the fence about posting A664 spaced out over months like I did, vs. all at once. Doing the latter in hindsight probably would have been a fucked up thing to do to the internet though. The GAME OVER fallout alone was a bit much as it was. Including it in tandem with the rest of it? Not sure what to make of that. Let's review the CONTENT CRUSH that would have entailed. Bad Anime -> Game Over -> Sadstuck -> Lowas Quest -> 100 retconned panels of oil -> A bunch of other shit -> Punky Serket -> Fantroll Storytime -> 8 password pages -> The Kiss On Horse Mountain -> and finally -> The Punchline. You know, that's an awful lot of baloney to publish. I think the fell-swoop reaction to all that would have been quite a thing to behold, but also, perhaps an irresponsible thing to do to a hapless fanbase after a year in hibernation. I'm told that in 2015, young people are heavily susceptible to "the feels", and trifling with those forces could be injurious to their future development. Wait, did that just sound like something your grandpa would say? Mother fuck, where did I put my cane. Oh right, I snapped it in half from shaking it at the sky.

I may have been in the process of making a point there, but we're going to have to pick this up another time. The comic isn't going to pause itself!!!

Over the last couple months, I have been surreptitiously collapsing several update horses into single, bigger horses. This means A6A6I4 is going to end a little sooner than previously advertised. Same total page count, but finishing sooner. Please consult the important horse calendar below.

So what happens when A6A6I4 is done? I'm not quite sure yet. I'm still working on everything that comes after that. I've written it mostly, but haven't drawn anything yet. There will almost certainly be another pause, but I'm not sure how long it will be yet. I will let you know after 1/19.